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LAREDO — A former hit man for the Zetas cartel calmly related to jurors his role in killings on both sides of the border, testifying Monday in the drug conspiracy trial of a man prosecutors say was also a hired killer.

Pressing his fingertips together and speaking in a slow, soft voice, Reta, 22, told jurors that he had been in a team of hit men headed by Gabriel Cardona, an admitted Zeta who has pleaded guilty to five murders that occurred here in 2005 and 2006.

Reta said he was the triggerman in the second murder, killing Moises Garcia, a member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang, in December 2005.

“We just waited for him to come out and as soon as he came out, we blocked the way and I got down and killed him,” Reta said.

Reta, a U.S. citizen, received national media attention after the teenager was deported from Mexico in 2006 at age 17. He's known for his distinctive facial tattoos and boasts that he became a killer when he was 13 years old.

Prosecutors say Castillo Chavez was also a sicario, or hit man, in a crew that worked with Cardona's group, gunning down two people at a busy Laredo intersection in April 2006.

He faces up to life in prison if convicted on firearms and racketeering charges and a wide-ranging drug conspiracy charge that has allowed prosecutors to present evidence about nearly a decade's worth of the Zetas' operations.

Reta said that he fled to Mexico after two murders in Texas, for which he's now serving 70 years in prison, and worked with Castillo Chavez, who he knew by the nickname “Cachetes.” In May 2006, Reta testified, the two were in a team dispatched to El Punto Vivo, a nightclub in a suburb of Monterrey, Mexico.

“Chema (another hit man) and Cachetes went into the bar,” Reta said. “They shot, they threw some grenades and they killed four people there.”

Afterward, he said, the squad went to a convenience store for snacks and drinks. Prosecutors played video from a security camera showing Reta and three others, including a heavy-set man they said was Castillo Chavez, making purchases.

Jurors also heard from Laredo police detective Robert Garcia, who testified that he linked the sicarios using phone records.

The big break came when a Drug Enforcement Administration informant was tasked by the Zetas with renting a safe house for Cardona's crew. Garcia said he worked with the feds to thwart the Zetas' attempted hits and to gather evidence.

Defense attorneys questioned why someone who had shown great care to hide after killings in the U.S. would so brazenly hang out at a convenience store, even microwave popcorn, after committing a high-profile killing in Mexico.

“In Mexico, the cartels run everything,” Reta said. “So it doesn't matter if you get caught on video. We are the law over there.”